thanks! 💞

and sorry, but no. infinite scroll is one of my least favourite features so I’m never going to make a theme with it. it’s my personal coding pet peeve.

My old computer didn’t support the webp format, so I could still see images and gifs at their original quality (or as close as possible), and I didn’t notice it until I got a new one and started looking for ways to disable it. None of the scripts I tried worked, none of the browser settings I tried either. So unless google reverts to the old file formats instead of forcing them to change to webp, or someone thinks of something to alter computer settings, I think we’re stuck with it (2/2)

oh wow, I didn’t realize that imaging file format could be a factor. thanks for letting me know! my eyesight really isn’t good enough for me to see any of these differences in gif quality so thanks for the further confirmation that there really is nothing Tumblr thememakers can do about gif quality.

yes; I explain this on my extended terms of use:

Do not remove my credit entirely from the theme, put the credit on a secondary page/take it off the index page, or alter the credit in any way.

Every one of my themes comes with a credit link that links back to my blog and denotes me as the maker of the theme. Do not touch this in any way. For my commissioned themes, I’m happy to put the credit link wherever you want as long as it is visible on the index page, but for my free themes, I ask that you do not alter it in any way.

If you are using one of my themes on your blog, you do not need to manually input a credit link in your description, on a secondary page, etc. since my credit link comes with the theme. You don’t have to like or reblog the theme post either. I would really appreciate it if you did so, but I do not make likes or reblogs a mandatory condition for using my themes.

basically, you don’t need to do anything since my credit link is already on the theme, but please don’t delete it.

tbh I find it basically impossible especially because I don’t have formal training and I don’t really understand any of the basic lingo that people who do web design for a living and actually understand what’s going on use. that’s why I made it a rule that anyone who’s reporting a bug has to send me a link to the blog they’re using the theme on, because I realized after a few months of doing this that most people don’t know what relevant info to include simply because they’re not familiar with coding. not that there’s anything wrong with that! coding is a specialized thing and my own lack of knowledge doesn’t help.

but as long as people send me a link and read through my FAQ so they know what relevant info to include in their message, I can figure it out. it’s only when people send me vague messages on anon that are like “hi your theme doesn’t work!!!” that it’s really impossible for me to do anything.

I got it by following css-trick’s guide to dark/light mode and using the localStorage method. I think the css is basically the same as in egg’s guide, it’s just that the jquery uses localStorage to remember the user’s preferences, so I think you could probably just swap out the jquery from egg’s tutorial with what I have. this is my jquery:

const btn = document.querySelector(“.night-button”);

   const currentTheme = localStorage.getItem(“theme”);
   if (currentTheme == “dark”) {
     document.body.classList.add(“night-mode”);
   }

   btn.addEventListener(“click”, function () {
     document.body.classList.toggle(“night-mode”);

     let theme = “light”;
     if (document.body.classList.contains(“night-mode”)) {
       theme = “dark”;
     }
     localStorage.setItem(“theme”, theme);
   });

but yes I fully recommend reading through the guide since I’m a novice with jquery and I can’t really explain it well. 

thank you! it’s always good to hear that someone is looking to support us :)

I’d start with codingcabin’s members page, since there’s a ton of great thememakers in it.

eggdesign also posted a list of newer thememakers, so I’d also start there as well!

here’s some of my faves who I don’t think are on either of those lists:

• @amboise
• @sheathemes
• @byananda

there’s definitely a bunch I’m forgetting so I apologize if I forgot anyone. my brain is too fried from school right now.

plus I reblog lots of themes into my #recs tag, so you could take a look there and find some to follow.

thank you so much! I do have a bunch:

• previews matter a lot, because it’s how you show off your theme and most people decide whether to use a theme or not based on the preview. I try to spend quite a bit of time making sure that my previews look nice, display the theme’s most important options, and show a diversity of post types. same thing with the preview picture(s) in the posts - I think picking 1-3 that show off your theme’s dominant features helps a lot. 
• you can use a live preview or a static preview. a live preview is just a sideblog with your theme on it so that viewers can interact with your theme the same way as normal blogs. static previews are basically just the source code of a web page that thememakers host on their blog as a custom page, so viewers can’t interact with them like a normal blog theme. 
• I use static previews so that I don’t have 38402384 sideblogs. to make it, you just put your theme on a side blog, right click > view page source > copy everything > go to your blog > edit appearance > add a page > select custom layout > paste everything and save.
• github is the best way to host your codes because recently, pastebin has been labelling tumblr themes as “offensive” and putting them on private or removing them. I’m trying to figure out a good alternative to pastebin because I like to have alternate downloads in case github screws up, but idk yet. plus, pastebin is banned in a bunch of countries.
• make sure whatever blog you’re hosting your themes on, preview links, and code links are easily accessible.
• for example, I wouldn’t suggest using a theme for your blog that has 9px font (most people, especially those of us with bad eyesight can’t read 9px font). or as another example, if you plan on putting your preview/code links in the content source links instead of the post body, make sure your theme has visible content source links. stuff like that
• related to the above: Tumblr was hiding posts with external links, but recently, they’ve stopped doing that and I can now see more theme posts in my tracked tags, so it should be fine if you stick your links in the post body. but it’s important to tag your theme posts with the right tags. only the first five tags count towards the tracked tags. I usually tag mine with stuff like #tumblr theme and then a couple of resource blogs.
• also, and I really can’t stress this enough: if your theme post doesn’t get a ton of notes in the first few hours/days after you post it, DON’T PANIC. theme posts take a much longer time to get exposure than other types of posts because Tumblr’s algorithms, and because most people will find your themes by seeing them in action on other people’s blogs. this is all especially true when you’re first starting out, and it feels rough, especially if you’re a content creator who’s used to posting stuff like gifs that get reblogged more quickly and more widely. it often takes weeks or months for theme posts to accrue anything like 250+ notes.
• it’s also good to clearly set your own boundaries (like ask boundaries… which I am not great at doing) with asks. the vast majority of people are nice and respectful, but there’s a small minority who feel entitled to thememakers’ time and labour, and this is especially true if you move into premium thememaking.
• re: commissions…. that’s a big step that could be its own post, but I will say that a big part of commissions is the preparation that goes into it beforehand. like making sure you have a base code you know your way around and you have your terms and conditions set out really clearly beforehand.

okay well that’s a giant post but good luck with your thememaking!

oh well that’s super flattering, I’m honoured to be one of your favourite theme makers!

honestly, I don’t usually start with a lot in mind. as for influences, I usually start with some kind of small design concept that I expand into a larger aesthetic or layout. like, with celandine, it was the page number design in a book I was reading for class. or I go with something general; for rosemary, I just knew I wanted to do something like a minimal one column theme with a bunch of info contained in on-click dropdowns or menus but it didn’t pan out at all the way I wanted it to. with basically all my themes, I spend a lot of time coding something where I think it will look good, and then it looks like crap, so I have to modify it. but on the flip side, sometimes I’m convinced something will look like garbage, and then I try it out and find that it looks good. really, just lots of trial and error. I’ve tried doing mockups in the past but my drawing/photoshop skills are too shitty for that to be of much use. 

I’ve also tried looking at stuff like behance and dribbble for inspiration but I find I struggle to put that into use. but tbh doing the social media redesign thing like in dahlia (twitter) or lilac (the new post bar from twitter) has worked out well for me in the past because I like taking something I don’t really like the look of and trying to make it better. hmm but really all I can say is that I fully advocate for making lots of mistakes, doing lots of trial and error, and drafting themes/shelving them if you’re not happy and then coming back to it later. I archive basically anything I ever code so I can come back to it, and a bunch of my themes were stuff that I coded and didn’t like (bluebell, honeysuckle, cherry blossom, etc.), dumped it on my hard drive, came back to it and redid it a while later and ended up with something I liked.

hi, i’m sorry but not sure what you’re asking? you can fill in the link info in the text fields in the customization panel. if you’re using one of my themes that has built-in page functionality, you can go to the page and tick “show a link to this page”, but most of my themes don’t have that functionality. my FAQ has a list of the ones that do, so if you’re using one of the themes that doesn’t have that, ticking the page toggle won’t do anything. 

w3schools’ javascript tabs is probably your best bet, because it’s pretty simple. they have a bunch of other tutorials on how to do multiple tabs, so I’d suggest starting there. 

you can also do it with only CSS and HTML by using radio inputs, if you don’t want to use any kind of script.

the tabs script I used in tansy and some of my commissioned themes uses jquery and is adapted from this stackoverflow thread. however, it was finicky to style and I found it worked better once I made a few of my own addition. you could also try that, but personally, when I was completely new to tabs, I found the w3schools method the best.

thanks!

there’s two main ways: the unnested captions script by @magnusthemes or @neothm, and the undocumented documentation by @bychloethemes, which I use. the script is a little simpler to set up, since the undocumented documentation takes time to set up, but I prefer to work with blocks rather than scripts.

@annasthms also wrote up a tutorial and a base code for the undocumented documentation blocks!

thank you so much! I’m really glad to hear that, especially that you find it readable. I wanted to make a theme that was readable and looked good with any font size and I think it does!

for the customization preview, that’s because you have a smaller screen. the theme is responsive, so when the screen size is small and there isn’t enough space to display both the sidebar and the posts, the sidebar converts to a header. because the customization panel calculates the screen size based on only the width of the preview viewing area, rather than the total width of your screen (viewing area plus customization panel), it triggers the breakpoint on smaller screens and converts the sidebar to a header. I don’t think there’s any way to get around that on smaller screens without making the theme unresponsive or using scripts. so unfortunately for those of you with smaller screens, the only way for you to see the customizations you’re making to the sidebar version is to open it in a new, regular tab.

I should also note that this happens with my other sidebar themes that are responsive (namely cherry blossom and bluebell) so if anyone else has observed this on their screens, this is why. 

but anyways, I appreciate all the love for rosemary!

oh yes, that’s totally fine. I’m fine with you or anyone else mixing parts of my own themes together - it’s just people mixing parts of my themes with stuff made by another theme maker that I don’t want. but thanks for checking in with me before doing that, I appreciate it!